Category Archives: Photos

Autumn Garden Journal #2

Yesterday I slept in, lulled back to sleep by the relentless rain.  It carried on all day and by mid-afternoon had morphed into a Big Wind that littered the ground with branches and leaves. We had some Strong Gusts and I’m curious to see if any trees came down in the woods.   By sunset, we could see the sun and today should be okay.

These pictures were taken Friday, Before the Storm…

The roses are blooming away.  The purple coneflower is still a bird-magnet.

All that’s left of the edible garden:  Pineapple Sage and Asparagus ferns.

The birds have been frolicking in the bird bath. I so enjoyed watching that I didn’t catch a shot of them splashing around…

It’s predicted that Jack Frost will arrive to paint our trees their best oranges, reds, and yellows on Halloween.  I love his work and the trees are primed…

Keep on Growing…

Photographs

I would have blogged more often this week, as I know you are just chomping at the bit to read my scintillating travelogue.  The internet, alas, as been only intermittent…to put it nicely.  Very frustrating…so I am now using my mobile hotspot and must keep an eye on my data usage.

The morning before we left Perry, Casey discovered a large lump on the driver front tire of our Expedition.  Luckily, we had only a 3-hour drive to St. Augustine Beach KOA.  This KOA is a nice one, 3/4 mile from the beach and just 3 miles from the Historic City of St. Augustine.

After setting up camp, we inquired as to a Tire Shop and got lucky…The Firestone Tire Center was smack-dab in the Historic City, so we dropped the car off for a new tire and walked around town.  Nice $135 free parking, eh?

We have been to St. Augustine Historic spots before.  There are reallyreally old buildings, forts, churches, the perfunctory tourist shops, decent restaurants, and the Fountain of Youth, of course…   We ate lunch and wandered around.

Our entire stay at St. Augustine Beach was sunny, highs lower 80s and breezy…in my mind perfect…  The beach had a nice pier and was just crowded enough with happy sun worshippers…

Saint Augustine Beach FL

Anastasia State Park was about a mile down the road, so we walked its dunes and hiked a short trail…

It’s only 123 miles from our St. Augustine Beach campsite to our current spot in Wickham Park, Melbourne, but since we made the trip and got set up, we haven’t seen the sun…  I am accustomed to everyday rain in Florida, and I remember a day where it actually rained all day, but this is running to 4 days in a row, with highs only up to mid-60’s.

And isn’t that perfect when you need to spend a couple of days indoors…?! I have already been to visit my Aunt Shirley and I’ll go back and spend another afternoon (doing laundry, too).  We are hanging out over at Cousin Kim’s house this afternoon, letting her feed us… I deliberately waited to shop for clothes until I got here and am thrilled to have a SteinMart and Bealls nearby, so shopping is a nice indoor activity.  Oh, and I need to get the witch nails cut back again, so there’s that.   By the time I get myself all prettied and cleaned, the Sun Will Return and we can head back to the beaches.

Uncle Junior died last Tuesday morning at 2am in the Linda White Hospice. He was a sweet man and I will miss our visits.   Aunt Shirley is the last of Mom’s brothers and sisters, 83-years-old and doing okay.  >sigh<

When the sun comes back, we’ll get out and Wow you with more photos…  Till then…

Peace

 

 

 

 

The last 2 weeks…

It seems like forever since I’ve blogged, but with good reason.  I always feel a little guilty when I don’t keep ya’ll up-to-date with the latest coming and goings around the Acres, but sometimes life is just too full of Now to stop and write about it…and that’s all right with me.

Olivia played the piano beautifully at her recital on the 8th.  The grandkids are sure growing up fast… I have a lovely video of her performance of “Belle”, but WP makes it difficult to upload videos, so all you get today is a pic…

We flew to NYC on the 11th…remind me not to take the earliest flight on earth next time.  We arrived early enough to pick up Eliza from school, the first time I’ve visited there.  She took the next two days off to hang around with us…

Early our first morning, we took the subway to Rockefeller Center for the NBC Studio Tour.  It was so incredibly cool.  At the end of the eye-opening tour — who knew the SNL set was so small? — the do a video of a “late night talk show”.  I can’t take the time to upload it to wordpress and you probably wouldn’t watch it anyway, but Eliza was the announcer and I was the guest.  It is hilarious.  So fun.

We spent Thursday hanging out, decorating the tree and playing games.  Emma was there, too, but Emma will be 13 next month…if you know what I mean…

Friday both girls were back in school.  Eric, Melissa, PawPaw, and I spent the day traipsing through the Oculis and over to the Whitney to view the Warhol exhibit.  It was as good as Warhol, but I thought there might be more…  Seems like I had seen many of them already…am I getting jaded?

Or maybe it’s because NYC surrounds a person with art…like here on the High Line…

Saturday morning found us at Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, our annual tradition.  This was the 14th visit for my daughter and me, and the show has changed for the better.  I told them last year we needed to just concentrate on the dancers and they took my advice.  They added new music, new choreography, more light-show stuff, while keeping the old favorites…though they don’t do the Santas with mirrors anymore.

 I just realized that my obsession with the Spectacular is as strong as my obsession with Disney….okay, not quite, but I do tend to repeat my good experiences again and again.

 

 

We flew back home Sunday and spent Monday doing laundry and at the grocery store.  We’ve had Samantha for the last 2 days and that’s as much a workout as walking NYC.  Olivia’s out of school now, so they’ll be here for a sleepover tonight.  I still have to buy gifts…and get these witch nails manicured…and get more food…

Our Christmas with the Jrs. will be this Sunday and by Monday the sound of the silence will be strong…  I’ll have plenty of time to write…

 Jingle All the Way…

Peace

First December Post

Casey had a birthday last Friday, his 64th.  I usually post something mushy about him, so if you are interested in knowing just how much I appreciate him read here and here and here ….just go check all the November archives!!!

This year’s celebration involved the traditional gifts of underwear and socks, but instead of a flannel shirt I found a shirt just like the one I gave him 10 or 15 years ago, the one that is really ragged now, though it pops into his clothing rotation every so once in a while.  I don’t imagine he’ll actually toss the old one, but I can sneak it into the rag bag soon.

After piano lesson on Saturday, Olivia and Samantha came over to put the decorations on the tree for us…

I’ve been shopping and I still need to do more shopping and it’s awfully tiresome.  I do make friends standing in line, and always chat up the cashier, so it has its fun moments.   When I got down my Christmas-y clothes this year, it was sad and pathetic, so I’m on a quest for some Holiday togs.  This week-end is Olivia’s Piano Recital at EMA and in just a week we’ll be flying into NYC for our Christmas celebration with the Jose’ Family, so I must have all my frocks in a row.

I’ve traced my genealogy about as far as I can go using the free library version of MyHeritage, so I decided to sign up for a 2-week free trial.  It’s true that Ancestry has a larger database, but I see many of my family folks are on MyHeritage, so I think that’s the way to go.  Except…I don’t have time for it right now.  I think it’s going to make a great January hobby…

I’m within 1 book of meeting my goodreads challenge for the year, cruising through some old-time mysteries by the likes of Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey (thanks, Sippora!)

I managed to write for an hour every day in November, but I can’t brag about how much I accomplished.  I’m stuck in the middle of the beginning of the Grandmother story, so I left it and did some editing of some old stories I’d forgotten about.  I found a poem that I wrote on our trip to Brown County and it wasn’t too bad, so I fixed it to  good.  Overall, I think I’ve gotten a habit going…just in time to break it for Christmas..!  I don’t think I’m good for routine much longer than 30 days anyway, so I really don’t mind at all…

Peace

 

Scenes from the week-end

We danced through Thanksgiving…

Friday we brought Everything Christmas down from the attic, raising dust, destroying cobwebs and sneezing.  We had made a fair dent in the decorating on Friday, but stopped Saturday to see a matinee of Ralph breaks the Internet with the Jrs.  We returned to our mess that evening and again this morning.  We have vacuumed up so much cat hair that I’m ashamed, but it’s pretty much done except for the tree…and maybe more Mr&Mrs Clauses….possibly some new pillows…

Now my week is free to catch up with my hair and nails and shopping.  I am closing in on my Reading Goal for 2018, too.  I’ve had to get my Grandmother story out of my mind and on paper, or air, or wherever these words go, before I can go on with the genealogy project and I’m getting verrry close to finishing.

I can’t get a good picture of our new wreath yet, but here’s a bad picture……use your imagination as your filter…

Peace

 

Bye-Bye, 2017

Before I tear off the rear-view mirror and cruise happily into 2018, let me linger just a moment…

January

1/26/17

February

March

April

May

Olivia is in the middle
Olivia 9, Samantha 2

June

July

August

before

September

October

November

December

Peace

Have a Safe New Year’s Eve!

Adventures with with O & S ….

We went to the zoo to celebrate Olivia’s first day of summer vacation…

O is more excited than she looks
Olivia 9, Samantha 2

Afterward, we came back to Sonnystone and played…It’s nice to have PawPaw around to play clue and help with fairy wings…

Samantha spent a while working on her flying…

Missing the essential Pixie Dust, she didn’t quite lift off, but she persisted…I like that in a person…

 

Peace

 

Another Week-end Wrapped Up

We arrived back at Sonnystone early afternoon Thursday.  You can read about our trip at My Travel Blog.  Wink had traveled very well, (even alerting us to bear outside the camper one night!) but was glad to get back to his old box, as were we.

Saturday was Olivia’s Dance Recital (as well as the Preakness, which did not turn out well, but I don’t wanna talk about it).  She has really improved and this year was her best.  In fact, the whole (half) of the recital that I watched was better than the last few.  It’s tough to get dancing pictures from the cheap seats without blur, but here’s my best of her best…

Olivia is in the middle
Olivia is in the middle
Olivia, second from left
Olivia, back left
Olivia, back left
Olivia, middle row left


Didn’t I warn you about what happens when we go off-grid?  While we were in the Smokies, the news cycle was Spinning, and when I came out of the no-news-zone it took several hours of reading to catch up with the chaos.  I’m glad I missed it in real time.  Reading it all summed up was anxiety-producing enough…  Of course, those of you who watch faux news 24/7 don’t have any idea what I’m talking about…

Busy week ahead.   The garden is growing strong.  Check out the photos at My Garden Blog.  Until we meet again…

Peace